Lie Me Down Among the Cold Dark Pines is about a young trans woman who stumbles onto a possible murder after moving back to her mother’s rural hometown where transphobia runs as rampant as the drugs and dark money schemes.

The novel starts off a little confusing, with no clear explanation as to who Nancy is during the first couple of chapters. This is resolved by chapter 4, however. The jargon used in the book may also be a bit confusing to some, as it’s not your typical American terms for everyday things.

I would not recommend this book to anyone who is triggered by violence against transgender women, sexual harassment, sex positivity, foul language, or the nuances of drug addiction. This is not what some may call a “cozy” mystery. It dives into the hard truth of what it can be like living in a rural town in the American south. I found the novel to be compelling and the characters well written. Hart’s internal dialogue paints a very real picture of what life is like for feminine presenting people. Nancy’s character is a bit rough, and definitely more open than most parents would be with their children, but it becomes clear that she loves them and would do anything for them. Howell, the little brother of Hart, plays a small, but honorable role throughout the story. There are characters you will absolutely love, and characters you will absolutely hate. All in all, The fact that Hart gets her happy ending, makes this book all the more worthwhile. I rated this book a 5 out of 5 stars for how it keeps readers engaged and wanting to know what happens next.

This book desperately aggressively needs trigger warnings, particularly if it’s wanting to court a queer audience. The last thing that made me stop what I was doing and go smoke a cigarette was my mom’s politics 9 months ago. The most recent is this book.

I couldn’t help but speculate an out the author. There’s not much info about them out there so all I could do was speculate about the intentions of a lot of things. Why be so misogynistic to every woman that’s introduced? Is it because Hart is insecure or because this is how they think women think about each other? Why the multiple instances of violent transphobia? Because it’s a terrible truth for trans people or to move the plot forward with trauma porn?

This one is hard for me to review because I get it. Books are allowed to be gritty and dark and I like books like that. Maybe it was because I got very triggered in the realest sense of the word that it tainted a lot of it for me. Thats not anyones fault but my own (and the fault of this prerelease version having no content warnings). I want to get that out of the way because I do have a lot to say about the content of the book. It is just a fact that this book was triggering for me and I have to be skeptical of the things included and question if it was done tastefully or compassionately. I’m still not sure, so I’ll push that aside. Perhaps revise that thought once the book is published.

There was a lot of it I liked and thought was done well. The line writing is very good. I saw the other review comment on the fact that it was strange there was no differentiation between the narration and Harts internal monologue, and that was a little strange at first but I just accepted it was all Harts thoughts.

The mystery was well done and had a lot of moving parts that made it interesting. I appreciate that in a mystery. I certainly did feel the pressure and anxiety of a thriller.
Even after I was forced to put the book down for my own health I was eager to pick it back up because I wanted to know how it ended, I wanted to know what happened to these characters. The pacing was good (although I have some critiques) and the story never felt stale or overstayed its welcome. (Except all the violent transphobia).

There was so much of it done well but it upset me so much I know I’m not able to give as objective a review as I’d like. And that’s not the books fault! (Not entirely at least). So I do have far more criticisms than praise because the book put me on the defense right alongside Hart. If I can just find the reasons it’s bad, if I can just get out all the technical reasons it’s not well done, then I can write off the whole thing and call it bad because of the violent transphobia, I can call it bad and mean it. That was the mindset I was battling against while reading. I can’t call it bad because it wasn’t. I enjoyed it, I wish I could have enjoyed it more but I had to accept it just wasn’t for me. I certainly won’t be recommending it to any of my trans friends.

The misogyny towards every woman character we were introduced to was really jarring the whole time, and we never get any update on that. Every woman is ugly and a whore and stuck up and a bitch and fat and frumpy and a prude and a junkie, or some combination of those.

Her warming up to Halcomb never sat right with me. Every cop is a bastard even him, thought it brought me some comfort that he was kind to her after her attack. Not enough comfort, but some. The same can be said about the FBI but there’s more to say about the plot shortly.

There were so so so many times where Hart felt needlessly naive and it frustrated me so much. I tried to put myself in the position of a 16 year old but I couldn’t make her naivety make sense to me some times. I get it she’s an unreliable narrator but it didn’t feel like that? It felt like she told us the answer and then two pages later she said “wait that’s the answer!?”. Again, I’m willing to accept that that’s a me problem. I didn’t feel like I could really get a grasp on her character because it was always so jarring when she did something just plain dumb.

The mystery was set up much bigger than it knocked down. I get it, Rome didn’t fall in a day, and there was talk about continuing the fight of the larger systems, but it was a little disappointing how simply it ended. It was good. It was really good. I enjoyed the ending, but I was disappointed how much was left on the table.

SOME SPOILERS

I was happy to see Hart get her happy ending but I feel this text I sent my sister once I was finished explains my feelings well:
It was… fine. But they set up more than they knocked down. At least katniss won the hunger games and she’s going to the winter dance with peta

I made a short rant on tiktok about 64% in where I said I’d probably give it 4 stars but that doesn’t feel right. I could be convinced to give it four stars and I might if I thought it was an important message for trans people, but I don’t want any other trans person to have the displeasure of reading this. It’s a good book. I swear it’s a good book.

Lie Me Down Among the Cold Dark Pines is an adult mystery thriller with LGBT+ themes and is set in a small mining town in the present day US. Hart is a sixteen year old girl who, with her mother Nancy, and younger brother, Howell, move into the house Nancy inherited from her mother back in their hometown. Hart gets pulled into the dark underbelly of the town after discovering a body along the mountain trail near her house.

Let me preface this review by saying this book was not my standard type of book. I prefer my mysteries a little cozier. That being said, it definitely has a pull to it, a way of pacing that keeps you on the trail of discovering the murder. The descriptions of a small, backwater, conservative town also give American Gothic vibes and a general unease. While I didn't initially like any of the characters, I came around to Nancy, who wielded self absorbson as a weapon against an unfair world, and Howell who never done a thing wrong in his life.

I gave this book 3 stars for a few reasons though. One, this book needs a serious content warning as it's loaded with sensitive content, which while I believe was handled well enough, would really upset some readers going in blind. Another reason was that I just wasn't vibing with Hart as a character. Might be my own personal opinion, but the way she viewed the world, and the world interacted with her just felt sour from start to finish. Also, there were a few things mentioned in the book that kind of took me out of it, a few details specifically about the geography and interstate names that didn't seem to make sense for the location. Lastly, and this might be nitpicky if its a formatting issue and not a editing choice, but there's moments when it switches from third person to first person and other than using "I" there's no distinction between what is regular text and what is the characters thoughts and it sometimes really threw me off.

Overall, a solid book if you are looking for a thriller/mystery.